Written on October 30, 2008 – 2:55 am | by Maria Mihale |


Though you might consider Parrot to be a rather casual when it comes to the various portable gadgets that they roll out, this time they’ve done it. They seem to have a clear cut winner on their hands. The Parrot Specchio was designed by Martin Szekely, and this stylish digital photo frame is not short on innovation and technology, featuring a whole bunch of ways to transfer and share pictures and albums.

If the name of the designer doesn’t ring a bell to you, let me remind you that he is a contemporary well-known French artist acknowledged worldwide as a “master of minimalism”, with pieces in the permanent collections of the world’s major museum, including the Centre Georges Pompidou and Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Well, this guy co-created an artful digital photo frame that incorporates a timeless mirror in the overall design.

When lights, shadows and reflections play on its surface, the Parrot Specchio frame becomes a mirror when it is turned off. In the blink of an eye, the mirror becomes a screen which projects your memories. The designer explained: “If you look in the mirror, your left is on your left and your right is in your right. On the photo, your left is on your right and your right is on your left. So, this object is both a mirror and a photo”.

If you are opting for this modern-day Polaroid, moments are instantly brought to life and shared through a beautiful frame that offers multiple connections (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth(R), NFC – Near Field Communication, mini-USB port and SD card reader). This way, special moments are captured and framed immediately. Using the latest in wireless standards, sliding an NFC mobile phone against the back of the Parrot Specchio Wi-Fi digital picture frame will enable photographs to be right away transferred and displayed on the screen of the digital photo frame without the need of pairing the products.

Featuring Wi-Fi connection and email functionality, the Parrot Specchio frame by Martin Szekely brings the virtual picture sharing experience into every day home decor. Therefore, the frame can automatically receive and display pictures that are sent by an owner’s friends and family, as well as those that are uploaded onto community sites (such as Picasa, Flickr, Fotolog and so on). This way, the shared virtual images can be viewed from the comfort of any living room.

More than that, you can also use the frame to view articles scanned from newspapers or magazines, recipes for dishes, to-do lists for the weekend. In other words, it can be used to view practically any information or pictures that help make daily life easier for the user.

The Parrot Specchio Wi-Fi digital picture frame can store up to 1,500 photos and will be available starting November 2008 at a recommended retail price of $500.

(Source coolest-gadgets.com)